Gamedev.js is getting its momentum
After selling all 20 tickets for the first workshop in less than 24 hours, it was more than obvious that the second one is going to happen really soon.
After selling all 20 tickets for the first workshop in less than 24 hours, it was more than obvious that the second one is going to happen really soon.
There were two cases when I gave two talks in one day, but both were during a single conference - Hungarian Web Conference in Budapest and 4Developers in Warsaw. This time I did two talks at two different venues, although in the same city. I even managed to go for dinner of the first one after the second one ended.
I was able to start something I wanted to do for the past couple of years already - Gamedev.js workshops, so November can definitely be considered a good month.
Last month I had the pleasure of visiting Munich, giving a talk to five hundred people and running a workshop about how to build games with Phaser at the JS Kongress conference.
I missed the last meet.js in Warsaw (followed by Kyle Simpson's workshops) because I was in Berlin for the Tech Speakers meetup and the View Source conference, but I couldn't miss the next one which happened on November 24th.
It's not that Gamedev.js workshop #1 was my debut in a role of the workshop lead - I did run one at Mozilla Festival in 2013 and the other at BrazilJS in 2015 - but it was the first one in Poland and at the same time the first one ever organized by me. I wanted to do it for the past few years already, but it's better late than never.
I've spent most of October writing blog posts documenting September activities (be sure to check September's Report), and mostly just catching up on emails and projects.
The fifth edition of the js13kGames competition ended a month ago already, winners were announced, but I'm still getting all the things sorted, including the prizes and t-shirts. In the meantime, here's something about the winning entry.
I've just completed writing another quite big update for MDN Games - this time about implementing controls in HTML5 games using Captain Rogers: Battle at Andromeda demo as a case study and explained the source code of the pure JavaScript demo in detail.
September was a busy month, even more busy than August - you can tell by looking at how many posts were published between those two reports: exactly six.
I did a quick gamedev project for The Digitals - it was a Scooby-Do themed game that was promoting Dr. Gerard's new snacks.
It was a game development hackathon that happened on September 24th at CVSR College of Engineering in Hyderabad, India and was organized by Harsha Bandaru - Mozilla Representative in that area.
I wrote a guest blog post for the JS Kongress conference (where I'll be running a workshop on how to build HTML5 games with Phaser) about the current state of HTML5 game development in 2016, or at least my point of view on the given topic.
If you'd like to learn how to build HTML5 games with Phaser and will be in Munich at the end of November, then I'd like to invite you to my workshop at the JS Kongress conference.
We have 127 success stories this year - that's the number of entries submitted in 2016. Finishing a game is not an easy task, even more with given constraints of size and time, that's why I appreciate every single one submitted for the js13kGames competition.
After the incredible trip to Iceland for the first JSConf there I had a week to prepare myself for the next journey, this time a lot closer - to Berlin.
August (and the first half of September) was so busy that this monthly report had to wait way longer than usual to be written and published.
I've attended JSConf Iceland 2016 that happened on August 25-26th in Reykjavik. I've decided to write a longer-than-usual summary of the event in the form of a trip report.
It's the fifth edition of the yearly, month-long online competition for HTML5 game developers, and I hope it will keep the tradition of being bigger and better than the previous ones.
July was mostly spent on preparing the js13kGames competition - sending hundreds of emails, acquiring sponsors, judges and prizes.
I decided to take a personal challenge and try to make one game per month this year. Half of that time already passed, so let's see how it worked so far.
Wizard Quest is completed! I also flew to London for the Mozilla All Hands, and spent some time preparing the js13kGames 2016 competition.
I hate that game, literally. Almost four years ago I started working on it with BlackMoon Design, it was suppose to be the first serious HTML5 game from Enclave Games, but it ended up being a huge pain - here's the story.
It was the first Mozilla Work Week happening outside of the USA, and it was in Europe - London, England to be exact. Interestingly enough it took place a week before BREXIT.
May was a relatively positive month even though I wasn't able to finish any new game. I did a little bit of coding, writing and conference attending.
Originally planned for March, the new installment of the brave Captain Rogers in the form of a playable demo is finally here - better late than never.
It was a good month even though the gamedev work was highly disrupted by incorporating a new member into the team. She's young, but I know she'll be a great addition in the future.
As you probably noticed I'm trying to keep up building at least one game per month this year. It's not that easy, but the game jams can help achieve the goal - that's why I've decided to take part in Ludum Dare #35 last weekend.
I had a break from traveling around the world and speaking at various JavaScript conferences for the past few months, but decided to jump back and give two talks last week.
March 20th 2016 was the release date of my biggest project yet - Kasia Mazur. All she's interested in right now is crying, sleeping and pooping, but in the near future she'll be our Creative Director, Event Coordinator and probably also a QA Tester in the Enclave Games family.
February report was greatly delated because I wanted to finish Wizard Quest first and consider it the February's One Game A Month completed entry, but I failed.
We've decided to extend the deadline for submissions to the AirConsole HTML5 Game Contest 2016 - you have more than two weeks left to send in your game.
This is the year of virtual reality headsets being released to the public, with Oculus Rift and HTC Vive being some of the most anticipated hardware. The good news for web developers is that we already have WebVR, a JavaScript API for that. And with the new framework called A-Frame building virtual, 3D environments got easier than ever.
There's a game development competition I'm (co-)organizing and it's not js13kGames. The AirConsole team wanted to get involved in the HTML5 gamedev community and I'm helping them with that.
I've worked on a TV game, traveled to Singapore and wrote an article for MDN Games - January was a good month.
The past 2015 year was moderately good for me and for Enclave Games. Check out the article if you're interested in what happened over the last 12 months and what are the plans for the future.
I participated in Global Game Jam 2016 happening last weekend and this is the first time that I can actually say it was a good one as I was able to finish the game - even the smallest one. Here's how the Ritual Duel was created.
With the new approach to Participation in Mozilla, the volunteer gatherings will be called Leadership Summits from now on. It's something new for me too as I don't consider myself a leader at all.
It's official, so I can share the good news: brand new Panasonic TVs running Firefox OS that are showed at the CES 2016, one of the biggest electronic shows on Earth happening right now in Las Vegas, will have Captain Rogers 2 as one of the demo applications!
It's this time of the month again - let's see if Christmas got in the way of doing some cool gamedev stuff in December.
I had the great pleasure to be invited to the Mozilla Work Week which took place in Orlando, Florida, USA on the week of December 7th-11th. It was my second Work Week as the first one was in Whistler six months earlier. This was a special one because we were spending our time next to the Disney World.